01/23/2004
Source: Boulder County Business Report
Author: Caron Schwartz Ellis

BOULDER -- All partnerships strive for balance, but conflicting egos and differences of opinion tend to get in the way. In naming their company Whole Brain Technologies, Heather Florence and M. Teri Robnett have put their values on their sleeves. Even their titles -- left brain and right brain, respectively -- serve to remind themselves and their customers of that balance.

Whole Brain Technologies LLC is a Web-design and development firm. The difference, the founders say, is that its mission to help businesses get the most return out of their Internet investment by integrating all the elements -- design, development, content, marketing -- that go into building an effective Web site.

The company is able to provide all the elements because of the balance between Florence and Robnett. "We did personality assessments and found we are exact opposites, but our values are so well matched that we don't fight over everything," Robnett said. "I'm the right brain so I focus on the creative side -- marketing, strategy, content. Heather is the left brain -- systems, analytic, technical, programming."

The two had been successful entrepreneurs before joining forces in mid-2003.

Robnett has been involved in marketing and the Internet for more than a decade. In 2000, she founded Web Weaver Marketing Inc., a division of Robnett's other company, The Tenth Muse Inc., to help small businesses and nonprofits market their products and services via the Internet.
Florence opened Cybercom Consulting Inc. in 1997 to provide professional information technology support to real estate agents and other small businesses.

The two started collaborating on projects several years ago. "It was so successful we decided to make it more official," Robnett said. "We registered the domain name about a year ago, and when it came up for renewal we jumped in" and started Whole Brain.

Web Weaver and Cybercom still exist, but Robnett and Florence are migrating their separate clients to the new organization.

Whole Brain's primary focus is improving return on Internet investment. "What we found is that a lot of people were spending a lot of money on Web sites and throwing them up and wondering why no one showed up," Robnett said. They weren't getting the sales, hits or referrals they were looking and paying for.

Florence and Robnett found that most of those sites were lacking in one area or another. Typical problems include: A great design that's not delivering content the visitors want; spending too much developing a Web site but none into driving traffic there; not maintaining a Web site to keep information current.

Lori Mellon is one happy Whole Brain customer. The executive director of the Mesa Verde Foundation, based in Parker, met Robnett and Florence at the Colorado Association of Nonprofit Organization's fall 2002 conference. Although the two had yet to join forces officially as Whole Brain, they took on Mellon's project to develop and host the foundation's Web site.

"The conference was in October, and I wanted it up by Jan. 1," Mellon said. More time was needed, but "the communication was excellent," and they met the Feb. 1 deadline, she said. "They have a willingness to work with you. If you said, 'that shade of green was weird' they didn't think you were crazy."

Mellon said she had an original budget of $10,000 for design and content. Although the project "went a little over," she said. "That was my choice."

The foundation's Web site went on to win a 2003-2004 Golden Web Award for excellence in Web design and development.

A factor that went into Mellon's decision to work with Robnett and Florence is that they are women. "It's always a joy to work with women," Mellon said. "You cut through the BS."

Although they target small businesses and startups, Florence and Robnett prefer to work with women-owned businesses as well. "Women work differently -- the personal relationship is really important," Robnett said. "I think women really want to understand how their Web site works with everything they do, that it's part of their entire marketing effort."

Whole Brain is a member of eWomenNetwork, an international networking organization for women and the Boulder Chamber of Commerce's Business Women's Leadership Group, with plans to join the Boulder branch of Business and Professional Women.

The Whole Brain partners work out of their home offices, but are looking for office space. "It would be nice to have a central place for information and a location to meet with clients," Robnett said. They are looking in Boulder and along the Denver/Boulder Corridor to move into up to 1,000 square feet within the next six months.

Another motivator to moving into an office is to give the company space to grow.

The first order of business is hiring a personal assistant, then a designer, Robnett said. "But they will have to work well with Heather and I. Ideally, Heather and I would not like to be doing the hands-on, we'd like to be doing management and promotion and things like that."

"We have big plans to grow," Robnett said. "We want to be the women-owned, minority-owned Internet service firm in Colorado."

Whole Brain
Technologies LLC
1630 30th St., Suite 276
Boulder, CO 80301
Tel: 866-833-2494
Fax: (720) 294-8311
www.wholebraintech.com